(PF)The best wizard school

[Thattaman]

I recently got into a PbP game of Pathfinder where everyone in the party is a wizard. So therefore the main thing that separates us is our wizard school. My character is a transmuter who specializes in polymorph, I think that is the best build but what else would be good for other wizard characters.

[Daftendirekt]

While I haven't looked much at wizards yet in PF, I did see that one of the powers that Conjurers can get is very similar to Abrupt Jaunt in 3.5, and that's pretty badass. So, I'd probably pick that if I made a PF wizard.

[Eldariel]

Conjurer's prolly the best. My 4 picks would be Abjurer (feeds naturally into Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil through Master Specialist), Illusionist (natural Shadowcraft Mage), Conjurer (simply the best) & Transmuter (so everybody is unique; up there with Conjurer and has Transmutable Memory and Polymorph-line). Diviner is a good replacement for any since they're always solid and lose one less school but probably not necessary.

Of course, no need for everyone to have a different school but I guess it's a bit more interesting that way.

EDIT: This assuming 3.5 PRCs are still allowed. If not, of course, get a Diviner (the initiative bonus is nice) and Universalist (the Metamagics!).

[deuxhero]

Conjurer (Arbujant Jaunt) and Diviner (Moving first as a wizard means winning, so an ability that makes you move first is nice)

[Thattaman]

I've always thought of abjurers to be quite weak, but my order of power would be.
1.Transmutaion
2.Illusion
3.Evocation
4.Enchantment
5.Conjuration
6.Necromancy
7.Abjuration

But then there's sub-schools to debate.

[QuidEst]

Hogwarts. Obviously.

Seriously, though, I'm afraid I can never really decide. XP

[StreamOfTheSky]

If it's PF only, I'd choose specialties in this order:

1) Teleportation (Conjuror) - PF's version of Abrupt Jaunt! And you still get the level 20 perm. summoned monster! And conjuration spells rock!

2) Transmutation - Uh...the augmentation subschool, I guess? Transmutation school powers are pretty bad; this is 2nd solely because trans spells rock and the spectacles of annihilation (spontaneously swap any prepared trans spell for any other trans spell you know of same or lower level, as much as you want!) only function for transmuters.

3) Foresight (Divination) - Roll a d20 in advance and use it later on when you need it. That is VERY helpful. Still, divination is a really bad class of spells, and if you're *not* doing this specialty, you should be prohibiting divination (yes, you can do that in PF).

4) Admixture (Evocation) - If you must blast, this plus Dazing Spell and Persistent Spell feats/rods is actually sort of decent.

After that...nothing I've noticed that stands out. Some of the elemental specialties can be good for specific boons. Air gets Su 24/7 flight at level 10; Wood apparently gets Sirocco as a 4th level spell instead of 6th level.

[Thattaman]

I think the transmutation abilities are quite good. Because you can bonus your physical abilities so you don't just die. Admittedly telikenetic fist is quite a weak power.

[Gnorman]

Conjuration reins supreme, and likely always will. No other school gets the same combination of versatility and power (though transmutation is a close second).

Conjuration can:

Summon. Duh. Need a fighter or a rogue? No, you don't.

Teleport. Double duh. Need to go somewhere? Conjuration.

Create. There are few problems Minor Creation can't at least partly solve.

Blast. Orb of X, anyone?

Heal. Not technically available to wizard, but even so, another example of Conjuration doing everything.

Disable/Debuff - Grease, Glitterdust, Stinking Cloud - the three best spells of their level for trivializing encounters. All conjuration.

Pathfinder just made it worse by accelerating the level at which you can summon beastly creatures and giving them shinier class abilities (seriously, did they really think the conjurer needed it?).

The general ranking of schools is as follows:

1. Conjuration
2. Transmutation
3. Divination
4. Illusion
5. Abjuration
6. Necromancy
7. Evocation
8. Enchantment

This accounts for power and general utility - Enchantment effects can be powerful, but they rarely do anything other than target a Will save, Evocation rarely does anything but cause damage (though Contigency gives it a boost up from dead last). Necromancy is potentially powerful but narrow in focus, Abjuration has a lot of obligatory spells like Dispel Magic but is not generally very powerful. Divination and Illusion are extremely variable - in the right hands and at the right table, each one is a game-changer.

[Slipperychicken]

Universalist, for the free metamagic. Grappled and Silenced? Still Silent Dimension Door!

[Eldariel]

I've always thought of abjurers to be quite weak, but my order of power would be.
1.Transmutaion
2.Illusion
3.Evocation
4.Enchantment
5.Conjuration
6.Necromancy
7.Abjuration

But then there's sub-schools to debate.

Abjuration is really good in the end, though highly specialized. Without Initiate, much of the allure to specialize in it is lost. Its greatest powers are Dispel Magics, which absolutely wreck any humanoid warriors (who rely on their magic items) and are very useful against casters with lots of buffs too. Then you have Protection from Alignment, Mind Blank, Banishment, Anti-Magic Field, etc. Enough good stuff per level to get you by as a specialist.


3) Foresight (Divination) - Roll a d20 in advance and use it later on when you need it. That is VERY helpful. Still, divination is a really bad class of spells, and if you're *not* doing this specialty, you should be prohibiting divination (yes, you can do that in PF).

Really bad class of spells? Sure it's not that expansive but it has Contact Other Plane, Detect Magic, See Invisibility, Scrying, Anticipate Peril, Comprehend Language, Arcane Sight, Moment of Prescience, Foresight, Greater Prying Eyes & True Seeing off the top of my head.

If you ever need to solve anything, Divination is your school. Need to find out BBEG's buffs? Contact Other Plane is your spell. Wanna kill something? Scry and Teleport. Some of the most campaign-morphing spells are Divinations tho of course, if you just walk a piperun and bash doors in to find out what's on the other side, it's less useful (mind, stuff like Detect Magic, See Invisibility, Arcane Sight & True Seeing is still immensely useful and Scrying can be used in micro scale between rooms too). But if you play a real campaign, Divination is quite possibly the most powerful of the schools, perhaps behind Conjuration and the Bindings + Teleports.

EDIT: And yes, while it's significantly harder in PF, it's still possible to autosucceed the Contact Other Plane Int-check for Greater Deities pre-epic (36 Int from 18 Base, +2 Race, +5 Levels, +5 Inherent, +6 Item & +1 from Pale Green Prism Ioun Stone and Luckstone each for instance for +15 or enough to make the DC 16 Int-check on 1).

[Psyren]

Transmutation got several nerf bats in a dark alley in PF, so Conjuration is on top now I'd say.

Meanwhile, Divination hit the gym!

[Earthwalker]

Blast. Orb of X, anyone?



Are the Orb of X spells in Pathfinder ?

[Gnorman]

Are the Orb of X spells in Pathfinder ?

No, I suppose they are not, that is true. I was using them as a general example of conjuration's utility. However, conjurers can still cause plenty of damage, they just have to use acid and pit spells to do it. Also, Pathfinder conjurers, (unlike 3.5 conjurers) can cast Evocation spells.

Also in Pathfinder: Conjurers can heal better than clerics (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/i/infernal-healing).

[Psyren]

Also, Pathfinder conjurers, (unlike 3.5 conjurers) can cast Evocation spells.

You're thinking 3.0 actually. In 3.5, you can pick your banned schools, so a 3.5 Conjurer could choose to keep Evocation if he wished (though few do.)

[Gnorman]

You're thinking 3.0 actually. In 3.5, you can pick your banned schools, so a 3.5 Conjurer could choose to keep Evocation if he wished (though few do.)

I am most definitely not thinking of 3.0. Everyone knows that a conjurer's banned schools are always evocation and enchantment.

[Psyren]

I am most definitely not thinking of 3.0. Everyone knows that a conjurer's banned schools are always evocation and enchantment.

Often, yes, but again - they don't have to be (in 3.5.) You were saying they were completely unable to.

[Gnorman]

It was joke.

[Analytica]

For PF, I actually like the elemental schools, at least fire and void. The latter has good defensive abilities and debuffs. Also consider Transmuter with Annihilation Spectacles.

[Blisstake]

Also in Pathfinder: Conjurers can heal better than clerics (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/i/infernal-healing).

No they can't :smallconfused:

That spell takes a whole round to take, requires an unusual material component (unless you're a sorcerer, you'll have to go find devil's blood... since all spells with M aren't found in standard component pouches), and doesn't even heal as much over its entire duration as a dedicated healer could in a single spell.

[jaybird]

No they can't :smallconfused:

That spell takes a whole round to take, requires an unusual material component (unless you're a sorcerer, you'll have to go find devil's blood... since all spells with M aren't found in standard component pouches), and doesn't even heal as much over its entire duration as a dedicated healer could in a single spell.

You mean to tell me Fireball requires unusual material components? :smallconfused:

Casting Time 1 standard action
Components V, S, M (a ball of bat guano and sulfur)

[Gnorman]

No they can't :smallconfused:

That spell takes a whole round to take, requires an unusual material component (unless you're a sorcerer, you'll have to go find devil's blood... since all spells with M aren't found in standard component pouches), and doesn't even heal as much over its entire duration as a dedicated healer could in a single spell.

Here's some number crunching:

Cure Light Wounds generally heals, at best, 1d8+5. That's a 9.5 average, at level 5. At level one, when you can first cast it, it can't do more than 9, and heals, on average, 5.5. Infernal Healing heals 10 hit points at level 1, level 5, and level 20.

Cure Critical Wounds? At level 7, when you can first cast it, it heals 4d8+7. That's 25 hit points on average. It maxes out (at level 20!) at an average of 38. If you get lucky (or use Maximize), you'll get 52 hit points worth of healing. Greater Infernal Wounds heals 40 at 7th level, and 40 at 20th level.

I'll grant you that devil blood isn't easy to come by - until you are level 3, because Summon Monster II lets you summon lemures. Which you can milk like infernal cows for their sweet, sweet, blood.

I am willing to grant you that A.) a dedicated healer could improve those Cure numbers and outstrip Infernal Healing (the Healing domain's 6th level ability eventually ups the average of Cure Light Wounds/Cure Critical Wounds to ~14 and 57 respectively - however, at the level you can first cast Cure Serious Wounds, it only takes the average up to 37.5, still worse than Greater Infernal Healing) and B.) that it takes longer than Cure spells (there's an argument to be made about the efficiency of in-combat vs. out-of-combat healing, but that's a separate thread). But don't you think it's odd that a wizard can, with two spells, almost completely invalidate the supposed "point" of your average, non-optimized cleric?

Just saying - the Pathfinder conjurer is even better than the standard 3.5 one, and continues the grand tradition of conjuration being able to do everything better than the people who are supposed to be the best at that thing.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Really bad class of spells? Sure it's not that expansive but it has Contact Other Plane, Detect Magic, See Invisibility, Scrying, Anticipate Peril, Comprehend Language, Arcane Sight, Moment of Prescience, Foresight, Greater Prying Eyes & True Seeing off the top of my head.

If you ever need to solve anything, Divination is your school. Need to find out BBEG's buffs? Contact Other Plane is your spell. Wanna kill something? Scry and Teleport. Some of the most campaign-morphing spells are Divinations tho of course, if you just walk a piperun and bash doors in to find out what's on the other side, it's less useful (mind, stuff like Detect Magic, See Invisibility, Arcane Sight & True Seeing is still immensely useful and Scrying can be used in micro scale between rooms too). But if you play a real campaign, Divination is quite possibly the most powerful of the schools, perhaps behind Conjuration and the Bindings + Teleports.

EDIT: And yes, while it's significantly harder in PF, it's still possible to autosucceed the Contact Other Plane Int-check for Greater Deities pre-epic (36 Int from 18 Base, +2 Race, +5 Levels, +5 Inherent, +6 Item & +1 from Pale Green Prism Ioun Stone and Luckstone each for instance for +15 or enough to make the DC 16 Int-check on 1).

You're forgetting one important detail.

In PF, schools aren't "banned," they're prohibited. You can still cast all those spells, they just cost 2 slots to do so. Which is really super bad for in-combat spells. For "downtime" type spells, like...say...the majority of good divinations? You seriously don't care.

Prohibit divination, use a wand of detect magic if 2 cantrip slots is too harsh for you, and feel virtually no pain at all. Which is much more than I can say for prohibiting any other school.

[Karoht]

I'm rocking a Conjuration and Illusion combo build right now with a Sorcerer.
On demand spammable 'no' buttons along with Illusions to back it up. It doesn't pack a heck of a lot of punch, but I'm not really picking up damage spells other than the ones I get with my Bloodline.
Some of my favorite spells are Conjuration. Flaming Sphere and Aqueous Orb for example. Great fun at low level. Glitterdust and Grease. Everyone underestimates Glitterdust and Grease.
I haven't even touched Summons yet. I'm saving that pile of cheese for when my DM.

With a Wizard? If I'm having this much fun spamming Conjuration spells as a Sorcerer, I can only imagine seeing a Wizard really do it right.

[Eldariel]

You're forgetting one important detail.

In PF, schools aren't "banned," they're prohibited. You can still cast all those spells, they just cost 2 slots to do so. Which is really super bad for in-combat spells. For "downtime" type spells, like...say...the majority of good divinations? You seriously don't care.

Prohibit divination, use a wand of detect magic if 2 cantrip slots is too harsh for you, and feel virtually no pain at all. Which is much more than I can say for prohibiting any other school.

IDK, I can make do with taking two slots for Contingency and calling it a day. Later on I do want my Moment of Prescience, Foresight, Greater Prying Eyes, etc. up all day so that's a lot of high level slots invested if I ban Divination. Walls of Force, Forcecages and such are nice but vast majority of the time you're better off with Walls of Stone (for morphability) or so, making Evocation a very easy ban for instance.

And on low levels, the two cantrip slots are really quite big since you only have 3 and there's a bunch of solid ones (Daze, Read Magic, Detect Magic, Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, all the utility & Daze really).


Necro isn't that bad either; (Greater) False Life you'll eventually want to double up but above that, you don't really need much. Enervation is nice, granted, but it's not really a necessary part of your arsenal.

My own PF Wizard (from PF Society) is a Conjurer banning Evocation & Necromancy and so far, I couldn't have been happier with my choices (level 3 right now).

[Psyren]

...Hot damn! All this time playing PF and I didn't realize you can "ban" divination now. Guess I know what my next Wizard is doing.

[Blisstake]

Here's some number crunching:

Cure Light Wounds generally heals, at best, 1d8+5. That's a 9.5 average, at level 5. At level one, when you can first cast it, it can't do more than 9, and heals, on average, 5.5. Infernal Healing heals 10 hit points at level 1, level 5, and level 20.

Cure Critical Wounds? At level 7, when you can first cast it, it heals 4d8+7. That's 25 hit points on average. It maxes out (at level 20!) at an average of 38. If you get lucky (or use Maximize), you'll get 52 hit points worth of healing. Greater Infernal Wounds heals 40 at 7th level, and 40 at 20th level.

Right, and all of this takes place over 10 rounds, which pretty much negates any combat utility. It's a common misconception that you should never heal in combat: while in some cases defeating an enemy would be more effcient, being able to take one out isn't a guarantee, due to saves, attack rolls, not knowing their hp, etc, which means sometimes it's better to be safe and heal.

Now, if we're arguing pure out-of-combat healing potential, then clerics still win. At level 1, a cleric's channel energy heals 3.5 hp to all party members on average. Even with only 10 charisma, they can use it 3 times/day, healing an average of 10.5hp to each party member. Even if only two party members who need it, that's 2 spells a wizard would have to prepare to cover it. At level 1, using up two of your slots on that is generally a bad idea.

Then let's consider that clerics also have access to infernal healing. They just also have the luxury of subbing it for a more combat efficient spell on the fly. And finally, by level 7, out of combat healing is pretty much a thing of the past with wands, making cure spells better, simply by virtue of being useable in combat.


I'll grant you that devil blood isn't easy to come by - until you are level 3, because Summon Monster II lets you summon lemures. Which you can milk like infernal cows for their sweet, sweet, blood.

Remember that summon monsters dissappear completely when the spell expires. It's for the same reason you can't get infinite swords by summoning and killing hound archons. If you're talking about injuring them, and then using the blood for a spell, then you're essentially using up two spell slots just to give someone passable out of combat healing. At level 3, for comparison, a cleric would heal an average of 12hp with a second level spell, instead of using it to get the material component for a lower level spell.


But don't you think it's odd that a wizard can, with two spells, almost completely invalidate the supposed "point" of your average, non-optimized cleric?

If the whole point of the cleric is out of combat healing, then they're really doing it wrong.


Just saying - the Pathfinder conjurer is even better than the standard 3.5 one, and continues the grand tradition of conjuration being able to do everything better than the people who are supposed to be the best at that thing.

I agree that conjuration is probably the best school; I'm just commenting against the statement that wizards can make better healers. That's just utterly untrue. Whether conjuration got better in PF is an entirely different discussion, but I don't feel strongly either way, honestly.